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ARMS & SLEEPERS
N. American Tour Support - Aug. 2008! Arms & Sleepers began one night in the back of an ambulance in Cambridge, MA. In an alleyway a man was bleeding with a cassette player in hand, the play button still on. What sounded like recordings of a gospel choir blared from the tin speaker, while down the street a jazz band could be heard. The man was dying. He dropped the cassette player on the cement and closed his eyes, the sound carrying through the air into his ears for one last time. Though this moment in time died with him, his cassette lived on — and Arms & Sleepers was born. Through Arms & Sleepers, Max Lewis (programming, keyboards) and Mirza Ramic (bass, keyboards) keep spirit and the music of that night alive. Utilizing electronic sources as the main focus in their compositions, the two create warm tides of sound set atop ambient undercurrents. Varying configurations of rich, brassy textures, choppy beats and ethereal vocals yield an engaging, subterranean pulse driven by amorphous low-end frequencies. Overall the sound matches the intentional tragic tale. The duo's live performance is combined with visuals by talented Boston artist Dado Ramadani. The visuals are subjectively selected and synchronized perfectly with the rhythm of each song, providing the audience with a complete audio and visual experience. Persistent international touring and constant dissemination of their sounds makes Arms & Sleepers a worthy opponent for the typical temporal constraints that can befall a band. Having issued a series of limited edition releases and the well-received Bliss Was it in That Dawn to be Alive EP (Fake Chapter) in 2007, Black Paris 86 is their debut full-length on Expect Candy Records (DE). A tight and intense record, listening to it feels like sitting in a cinema, watching landscapes, beauty and tragedy - feeling warm and safe while a hint of mystery seems to whisper that not everything is ok out there. Praise for Arms & Sleepers: Live Shows, Black Paris 86, and Bliss Was It In That Dawn To Be Alive "...soft, dreamy compositions—warm, textured, heady as a summer night, watching stars sparkle in the blackness..." -Portfolio Weekly (VA) "Lush, delicate, and expertly textured..." -Mountain Xpress (NC) “Soft, intricate, pensive, and soothing...this is an album with a ton of staying power” –Babysue "For anyone looking for a refreshing new change of pace, I have little doubt that Arms and Sleepers could be the stimulus you are looking for." -The Silent Ballet
"Arms and Sleepers' music is about evoking stories from the subtle disintegration and regenerations of life, capturing fleeting moments when humanity reaches a crescendo but there's no one there to witness it." -Eugene Weekly (OR) "Moody, strange, atmospheric, mysterious. The ambient avant-garde sound of electronica duo Arms and Sleepers eludes easy description." -The Charleston Gazette (WV) "Arms and Sleepers have chosen to go the path of originality and have really created a marvelous groundwork for their musical career." - N/A Reviews "...the overriding vibe is so laid back as to be supine, with the horns and voices used to enhance the dreamlike textures generated by the keyboard-bass-programming mix." -The Times of Acadiana (Baton Rouge) "If nature could digitally remix its collection of summer night sounds, the disc would be a sister to the music Arms and Sleepers produce. Soothing, earthy, and electronic, it's nature plugged into the wall socket..." -City Pages (Minneapolis) "...jazz- and trip-hop-influenced electro-pop, IDM-pop punctuated by effective and never-distracting vocals..." -Newcity Chicago "It's hard for some people to believe that electronic music can have a real emotional core. Cambridge, MA duo Arms and Sleepers leaves little doubt that such machine-generated soul is possible." -Centerstage Chicago "Black Paris 86 from electronica duo Arms and Sleepers sort of plays like the soundtrack of an introspective indie flick or a deep space sci-fi movie." -Lansing Noise "Early contender for Best of the Year, easily." -The Speed of Silence
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